The part that everyone wants to hear about is, of course, the Radeon
X1800 based on ATI's long awaited R520 GPU. Due for introduction
later this quarter, the 90nm R520 will be a 16-pipe, 16-shader
processor design with a number of different SKUs based on the GPU.
Internal ATI documentation specifically claims that the R520 series
will ship at launch, just as NVIDIA's 7800GTX and 7800GT series shipped
and launched on the same dates.

ATI R520 Roadmap and Pricing

Card

Pipes

Std Core Clock

Std Memory

MSRP

X1800 XT

16

600MHz

700MHz 512MB GDDR3

$599

X1800 XL

16

550MHz

625MHz 512MB GDDR3

$499

X1800 Pro

16

500MHz

500MHz 256MB GDDR3

$449

X1800 LE

12

450MHz

450MHZ 256MB GDDR3

$349

Common features to all R520 based boards include the new 90nm lead
free manufacturing process, a Xilleon based TV encoder, SM3.0, H.264
decode acceleration and CrossFire support. Also expect to see HDTV
options for all 90nm ATI cards in the near future, although they may be
limited to the All In Wonder series for R520.

At the top end is the Radeon X1800 XT; this 16-pipe R520 will
feature a 600MHz core clock, with a 256-bit memory bus connected to
512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 700MHz. The 600MHz core clock will
give it a lower fill rate than the GeForce 7800 GTX (24-pipes at
430MHz), while the 700MHz memory clock will give it more memory
bandwidth than the stock GTX (600MHz). Much like the GTX, the X1800 XT
will be priced at $599. The X1800 XT will feature two DVI outputs with
HDCP support. The lower fillrate seems alarming at first, but consider
several factors. First of all, ATI's traditional core design can do
"more" per clock cycle (at least on the R420 design)
than NVIDIA. Secondly, R520 has a lot of little tweaks including
hardware asissted H.264 decoding. Just last week, we also received
details about ATI's revamped memory controller
which operates on an internal 512-bit ring bus. There is a lot to
speculate about performance, but even with similar fill rates as
NVIDIA, there is a strong possibility that other workings in R520 will
differentiate the card on a real world performance level.

Next up is the Radeon X1800 XL, which is positioned between the
GeForce 7800 GTX and the 7800 GT. The XL drops the core clock down to
550MHz, and the memory clock down to 625MHz. Other than the lower clock
speeds, the XL is identical to the XT, meaning it still has 512MB of
GDDR3 memory connected to a 256-bit memory bus. The X1800 XL will be
priced at $499. Both the X1800 XT and X1800 XL appear to be dual-slot
designs from previous roadmaps and existing box art. The roadmap also details that there will be HDCP support for the X1800 XL
and X1800 XT via Texas Instrument's TFP513PAP DVI transmitter.

Priced at $449, we have the X1800 Pro, once more a 16-pipe R520 design
but this time the core runs at 500MHz. The Radeon X1800 Pro only has
256MB of memory, also running at 500MHz, but still retains the same
256-bit memory bus. What is interesting about the Radeon X1800 Pro is
that its fill rate and memory bandwidth appear to be identical to that
of NVIDIA's GeForce 7800GT; coincidentally, so does its price.
The reference design for the X1800 Pro features a single VGA and a
single DVI connector, with no HDCP support.

The last member of the R520 family is the Radeon X1800 LE, which
disables four of the pipelines of the R520 taking it down to a 12-pipe
design. The LE runs at 450MHz with 256MB of 450MHz GDDR3 memory. Once
again we're dealing with a 256-bit memory bus, and this time a
$349 price tag. The outputs are identical to the X1800 Pro. Both the
Pro and LE cards are single slot cooling design, thanks to their lower
running clock speeds.

According to our roadmaps, it looks like ATI will abandon the
"vanilla" nomenclature for future products. For example, instead of a
plain X1800, instead we will get an X1800 LE. Likewise, on our previous
roadmaps components that were named with the non-XT non-LE non-Pro
non-XL name will thus become "LE" parts. Certainly a good move on ATI's
behalf, as "vanilla" X800 cards are hard enough to explain to readers.

The roadmap also refers to R580, and that the card is working
in-house at the moment. R580 is essentailly a clock ramp and pipe ramp
of R520, but both of those details have not been disclosed yet (even to
AIBs). Unforunately, the R580 will not ship at the same time as R520.